{ eat, sketch, cook }

Monthly Archives: December 2012

Khaao yam (ข้าวยำ) and naam buuduu (น้ำบูดู), now where should I begin? It goes back to 2008, when a Thai colleague mentioned in passing that khaao yam, a Southern Thai rice salad, was her favourite Thai food. At that time I had just started living in Thailand and I was beginning to taste my way around Bangkok and Thailand. I didn’t manage to try the dish then, but the name stuck in my head.

My introduction to phat kaphrao (ผัดกะเพรา; stir-fried holy basil) goes back to the mid 2000s when I was just beginning my love affair with Thailand. Sharing a meal with Fye, a fellow Singaporean friend who’s a real Thai nut, in Chiang Mai one day, he said: “Phat kaphrao is a no-brainer dish. It’s something that Thais would order when they have no idea what they want to eat.” I’ve heeded his advice since then, often opting for the ubiquitous phat kaphrao at raan aahaan taam sang (ร้านอาหารตามสั่ง; cook-to-order restaurants) if I’m undecided what I want, although fried rice comes in a close second.

Mr. P and I adore mushrooms in all shapes and sizes, from portobellos (expensive in this region) to enoki (goodle needle mushrooms) to Narcissus canned mushrooms and anything in between. It’s the only food that we perennially stock up at home because any mushroom gets eaten as quickly as it pops up in our fridge.

Hello! Sorry for the lack of updates on this space for the past few months. It’s been a hectic few months for me, having gone on several overseas work trips and moving countries (again), so whatever free time I have I prefer to spend it away from the computer with my family. But despite the inactivity here, I’m still eating lots of good food and I’ve been on the receiving end of several lovely food gifts!

I finally met with Shan, who was back in Singapore on a break from her postdoctoral studies in Scotland. We were secondary school classmates and haven’t seen each other for the past decade, so I was quite excited to catch up with her and another ex-classmate RJ for coffee one Saturday afternoon. Shan gave both of us a bag of her three favourite tea leaves from teapigs as a souvenir (how thoughtful of her!) and shared with us her study life and culinary inspiration in betwen frolicking among sheep and kilt-wearing men dashing in and out of her research lab. As for me, I went to meet her empty-handed…